


My Milkshake Brings One Boy to the Park

by Qpenguin98



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Depression, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Milkshakes, Smoking, all keith wanted was a milkshake, here we go boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 07:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10381575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: They say that sometimes talking to a stranger is easier.





	

Today is not a good day.

Keith is staring at himself in the mirror, hands shaking at his sides.

He cut his hair today. Not even that much shorter, just so that it brushes the middle of his neck instead of his shoulders.

As he stares in the mirror, it’s hard for him to recognize himself. His face doesn’t look right, it looks rounder and longer than it should. He brings a hand up to poke at his cheeks, and the reflection does the same, leaving a small spot of blood on the skin

He pulls on a sweater that he doesn’t usually wear, one of Shiro’s old ones, and looks back into the glass.

He recognizes himself even less.

Shoving up the sleeves, he wraps the open cuts on his arms, grimacing as the fabric drags blood up with it. He rinses off his hands and pats them dry on his pants.

Keith wants a milkshake.

Something sweet and fruity but not too fruity.

Strawberry then.

He puts his wallet and cigarettes in a shoulder bag, shoving his feet into his boots.

Shiro is curled up on the couch, reading a book while absently listening to the B grade cooking show that’s on.

“Going somewhere?” He asks as Keith enters the room.

“Going for a walk,” he says plainly, fishing his keys out of his pocket.

“Everything okay?” He’s staring at his forearms, Keith knows it.

“Everything’s fine, Shiro. I’m just going for a walk.”

“Be safe,” he says, and Keith walks out the door, locking it behind him.

There’s an ice cream shop near the neighborhood park by their house, so he goes there, siphoning his wallet out of his bag.

The person running the counter looks vaguely familiar, but not enough for him to ask. It’s probably from school anyway, and that would lead to an uncomfortable and unwanted conversation.

“Welcome to Zeebie’s!” he calls as Keith walks up to the counter. “You ordering the usual?”

“The usual?” Why would this guy know what the usual is?

“Yeah, strawberry milkshake, ranging from sized medium to large? You get the same thing every time you come in?”

“I- yes, yeah, medium.” He’ll deal with why this guy knows his order later. It’s possible that Keith’s just never paid enough attention to whoever was taking his order all the times he’s come in here.

“You okay, man?”

“I’m fantastic.” He doesn’t say anything else as he hands over the five and some change to the guy. He notes how the guy’s eyes track his bandaged up forearms, but thankfully doesn’t say anything about it.

It takes a minute, but Counter Boy turns around eventually with the milkshake in hand. “Wala! I present to you, your milkshake!”

“Are you this cheesy with everyone, or just customers you’re trying to cheer up?”

The boy falters and Keith takes it as a win. Smiling, he takes the milkshake from his hands. “Thanks for the shake.”

It’s nice outside, but the park is all but abandoned. There’s an empty car parked there, but other than that there’s nothing.

He sits himself on one of the swings and takes a sip of the milkshake. It’s good, sweet and fruity but not too fruity.

He wonders what Counter Boy’s name is and why he looks so familiar.

The cigarette burns in his throat and he coughs for a second after sucking in because it’s been a while and fuck shit that _hurt_.

It stops hurting so much after a couple drinks of milkshake, and he thinks this is what he needed; smoke filled lungs in the fresh air with a milkshake.

He still doesn’t think he’d be able to recognize himself.

Wind sifts through his hair and he sighs out gray.

“Hey Mister Milkshake.”

He jerks forward and almost falls off the swing. A hand darts out to steady his shoulder, and it’s all he can do not to flinch out of the grip. He sends a glare up at whoever just almost killed him, and lo and behold, he finds Counter Boy.

“My name’s not Mister Milkshake.”

“I know. Your name’s Keith, and you sure are looking fantastic.” He says it with such a sharp edge that it takes Keith a second to realize he’s repeating what he told him at the ice cream shop.

“Why do you know my name?”

“Uh, I’m Lance? We were in like five classes together back when you actually went to our high school. Ring any bells?”

Counter Boy- _Lance_ looks expectant, and Keith says the first thing that comes to mind. “You’re Pidge’s friend.”

He sighs and takes the swing next to Keith. “I mean yes, technically that’s true, I am Pidge’s friend, but it’s not usually how people remember me.”

Keith doesn’t say anything, just blows out more smoke before taking a drink of the milkshake.

“Shake good?”

“Yeah, actually. It’s really good.”

Lance seems to beam at the praise, twisting around in the swing. He twists up the chain and lets himself spin out, legs carefully drawn to avoid hitting Keith.

“So why aren’t you in class, Lance?”

“Spring break is happening right now, dummy. Didn’t Pidge tell you?”

He hasn’t actually talked to Pidge in like two weeks, so he wasn’t sure. “Slipped my mind.”

Lance hums in response. The quiet is overwhelming and Keith pulls the cigarette back up to his mouth. Lance wrinkles his nose at that.

“Those things are bad for you, you know.”

“I am aware, yes.”

“So why are you smoking then?”

“Why are you here? Weren’t you just at your job?”

“Shift’s over. And that’s my car.”

He points over at the empty, sad looking car in the gravel lot.

“Why park there?”

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you? Zeebie’s parking lot is slanted as shit, and I don’t like parking my car there. This is way more convenient.”

“If you’re off work, why are you still here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why are you talking to me? Don’t you have better things to do?”

“I just figured I’d see how you were doing.”

“Oh I see.” Keith drops the butt into the sand and stamps it out with his foot. He’ll pick it up when he leaves. “You came to see how the fucked up drop out was doing. How thoughtful.”

“Hey, whoa, I said none of those things. You said all of them, so I’m assuming that’s how you’re seeing yourself right now.”

“I don’t need some fucking psychology lesson from the guy that works at Zeebie’s, thanks.”

“You sure? Cause you’re looking pretty out of it, Mullet.”

He grips at his hair, wishing he could tug it back longer. This is what started everything today, isn’t it? Him deciding to cut his too-long hair and then losing himself when he saw it. The nickname sounds familiar, something Lance probably called him in one of their classes one time. He absently sips at his milkshake and kicks his legs out

“You still there?”

Lance waves a hand in front of his face and Keith scowls, side eyeing him.

“Good!”

It’s quiet for another minute.

“Doesn’t your family make you go to school?”

Keith stiffens, gripping tightly at the cup.

“Sore subject?”

“My family,” he starts awkwardly. “My family doesn’t- doesn’t—”

“Hey man, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want.”

“You’re friends with Pidge.” Lance nods at the statement. “You know like a year and a half ago when their dad and brother were killed in that ambush?”

“Yeah,” Lance says quietly. “That was a sucky time.”

“My older brother was a part of their group.”

Lance is silent next to him, looking at him with this shocked sad expression.

“I thought he died. And that’s who I lived with, Shiro. He was- it was bad. It all felt really covered up fast but he was _dead_ and I couldn’t deal with teachers and their stupid fucking standards then.”

These are emotions he hasn’t dealt with in a while, not since he got Shiro back.

“But he wasn’t dead. They were all captured, and Shiro got out.”

Lance sucks in a breath beside him, and Keith wipes at his eyes.

“It’s not, he’s not the same, which I mean, who would be after losing an arm and being a prisoner for a year.”

“Keith—”

“And I’m not qualified to deal with that! I can’t even take care of myself. And Shiro does a good enough job of it himself, he makes sure I’m okay and he can reasonably take care of himself like an adult, but there’s days when it’s bad and he gets bad and I get bad and nothing’s ever good anymore.

“And I can’t tell him that because everything’s so _fucked_ all the time. And it’s not like I can call up his mom and say ‘Oh hey your kid’s pretty fucked up right now I know we don’t talk at all but I thought you should know,’ because she doesn’t fucking care. I don’t want to _deal_ with this. I can’t kill myself because then Shiro’s all alone with his PTSD and I can’t keep acting like everything’s normal anymore because nothing’s ever normal. We just ignore each other’s shit and try to move on. I’ve got an older brother that screams in his sleep and can’t say anything for days on end, and he’s got a little brother that cuts himself up all the time and smokes too much. I can’t do this.”

He shudders in a breath, trying to cough out the emotion from his voice, but it’s no use.

“I cut my hair today because it got too long and when I looked in the mirror I couldn’t recognize myself. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“You’re Keith. You’re right here next to me and I need you to try calming down for a second. Take a drink of the milkshake, hell, take two. Just breathe for a few seconds. There we go.”

He does as he’s told, drinking at the milkshake and breathing in deeply. Lance’s hand is on his back, rubbing small circles, and he lets a tiny hiccupped sob out.

“Let it out, man. No judgement.”

He does not cry, refuses to cry in front of this kid from his probably English class. The hand on his back stays steady, though, and he breathes in and drinks the milkshake Lance made him and calms down.

“There you are, we’re good. Everything’s… fantastic? Fantastic. That’s the word you like. We’re all fantastic.”

Keith takes another few minutes to come back to himself completely, and then he sits there awkwardly. This is practically a stranger that he just broke down in front of. How much lower can he get?

But then again, people say that sometimes talking to strangers is easier.

“You good?”

He nods, sipping up the last of the shake. “I’m good.”

“Awesome. Give me your phone for a second?”

He unlocks it and hands it over. Lance types something in, and then he hears a buzzing in his pocket. He takes the phone back.

“There. Now you have my number, for if you ever want to talk about stuff or get food or something. Don’t be a stranger.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t sweat it.” He stands stretching up his arms. “Now, are you sure you’re good? Because I need to get home, but I can stay here with you until someone else can come get you if you want. It’s no problem.”

“No I’m okay. I live really close to here anyway.”

“Okay good. And I’m serious about messaging me. If you need anything or even just want a free milkshake, just let me know.”

He nods and watches as Lance waves and walks over to his car. It sputters to life and he drives off.

Keith thinks it’s time for him to go home.

He picks up the cigarette butt, puts it inside the milkshake cup, and throws both of them away.

The walk back is quiet, peaceful. He tries to clear his head, get his wits about him, but when he unlocks the door and walks inside, it’s no use.

Shiro’s in the same spot his was when he left, book siting to the side now as he idly flips through channels on the tv.

“How was your walk?” He glances over at him, gaze expectant.

Keith’s lip wobbles, because today is a good day for Shiro, and he doesn’t want to fuck it up. This is evidently the wrong thing for his body to do, because Shiro sits up straight and pats the seat cushion next to him.

He sits down and smushes his face into Shiro’s arm, eyes getting wetter by the second.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He shakes his head no. “Talk to me?”

“Can we stop ignoring that we’re both really fucked up in the head? It’s really hard right now.”

Steady arms come around him and he closes his mouth against the traitorous sob trying to force its way out.

“Are you okay right now? That’s a stupid question, neither of us are ever okay. Are you safe? Right now, is your headspace safe?”

He shakes his head no again, arms coming up to clutch around Shiro’s middle. His low exhale has Keith feeling guilty.

“Okay, we can do this, yeah? We can talk about stuff like responsible people. Do you want to talk to someone about it?”

He shrugs his shoulders and kind of halfway shakes his head.

“You should. If your head’s not safe right now, you really, really should. I don’t think I’m up for finding you dead.”

Keith snorts a laugh and Shiro’s arms tighten. “You too.”

“Yeah, I should too.”

“’m sorry I’m such a fucked up little brother.”

“None of that. You’re a great little brother. You shouldn’t have to take care of me. We’re just not good enough to take care of each other right now. So we’re gonna get better and things are gonna be great.”

Keith nods and Shiro sighs. “I wish you had said something sooner.”

“I didn’t want to stress you out more.”

“I’m always stressed. You being around just makes those nerves pop. You’re like a little ball of anxiety trying not to set me off. You shouldn’t have to deal with that. I want you to feel better, Keith.”

“I want you better too. I don’t want to wake up and find you gone again.”

“That’s not gonna happen.” He pulls Keith impossibly closer. “I promise you, it’s not going to happen.”

“Okay,” and it’s easy to say here, where things are just a little bit more comfortable than they were. “Okay.”

He lets himself hope.

**Author's Note:**

> hot shit boys  
> i really want a milkshake  
> i have like six things in the works right now that have been going on for over a month, and yet this thing i wrote in like three hours is the thing i get finished  
> also lol what's that title


End file.
